Colin McRae Rally

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Finally somebody had the cajones to bring real rally racing to the PlayStation.

By Doug Perry

For whatever reason no one in the US has had the vision, money or...whatever to see what Codemasters has been doing with racing for the past couple of years. Colin McRae 1&2 and Toca 1&2 (3DO brought Toca 1 over, with little fanfare or marketing) are great games, and Codemasters, under the distribution muscle of Activision, thankfully brought over Toca 2. Well, I guess Sony was either hungry or desperate or something, it really doesn't matter, because it snagged Colin McRae Rally and in doing so brought the most realistic, challenging, and I dare say best rally game to PlayStation in the system's five-year stint.

GameplayRally Cross and its successor (Rally Cross 2) were fun games in their own right, and the first actually required more skill and determination, but neither of them are quite like Colin McRae Rally. I loved Sega Rally when it first arrived in the arcades in 1995 and have played every single rally game I could get my hands on since. My favorite to this point has been Top Gear Rally on the Nintendo 64. Even after several hours of Gran Turismo 2's rally racing, which is incredibly frustrating, and mostly an extension of the game's racing system, Colin McRae Rally beats them all. It is surely the most well rounded, skilled-based, and authentic of them all. It's also as close to a simulation as they come, and while I'm not a huge sim fan, I love this game.

With tracks that range from long winding courses of the Australian outback to the sharp rolling hills in Greece to the killer snow trails in Sweden, Colin McRae Rally requires the utmost in practice, skill, and knowledge of one tracks to succeed. Players can train in Rally School (a highly recommended idea), go for a test drive in Rally (single course rally), aim for the best times in Time Trial, or go for the whole nine yards in Championship, which takes you across the world against international teams and Colin McRae himself. Rally School is cool just to hear Colin McRae talk. He's got a sharp Scottish accent and he congratulates or shames you in to performing better by re-trying the course. It's like he was there, and it's fun, but most of all Rally School is extremely helpful. Learning how to set up, corner, and use the throttle as a brake are all of the utmost importance in winning rally races.

The Championship does something that's technically logical and defines rally racing: it eliminates any car from the course and pits just you against the clock. In any other kind of game, that idea would be cockamamie, but in rally racing, drivers race against the clock anyway, and in doing so Codemasters hits two birds with one stone. First, it eliminates almost all pop-up from the screen, and since there are no other cars on the screen, it's easier for the background to be drawn instantly. Second, the racing is more realistic because it's just like the pros. OK, I have to admit that racing against another player or three other players simply can't be beat in terms of pure fun. But this race includes a stop clock that measures how the other racers are doing simultaneously, so at each segment's end, you know your standing. It works.

The courses are totally different, each requiring a different set up and set of driving skills, with each new course deepening the rally experience. I haven't had so much fun getting my ass kicked early in the race only to squeak by with a win in the end by less than a second. Beating Colin McRae is damn cool, too. The car physics are especially sweet, as the vehicles all respond to different surfaces with precise accuracy. If you take a turn in the snow and use a corner of the inside bank to start your spin -- and you do it right -- you take the turn perfectly, powersliding through with speed leftover at the slide's end. If not, well...you're toast (therein lies the challenge). Using a combination of the brakes and throttle every turn is a piece of artwork. Players get the chance to use the E-brake, too, which enables them to make hairpin turns without losing their position. And if you like crazy racing, well, it's here. The first time I flipped the car in Australia, I knew that this game is one of subtlety and skill.

In Championship, each country presents a different set of terrain. For instance, Greece, Australia, and Sweden are completely different. For Greece, players race on dusty gravel, which requires Dry Grooves, Soft Suspension, medium to stiff brakes, medium to high sensitivity for steering, and good to high speed acceleration. The interface prior to the race enables you set up the car, to see top-down view of the course, a small description of its pitfalls, and the kind of surface it is, which helps you choose the right tires. Australia's long, dusty courses require loose steering and max speeds, and Sweden's courses force the use of spiked tires, tight suspension, and high acceleration. A good set up is crucial to winning, with each course necessitating your forethought. Complete a course with top honors and a bonus track opens up for you to challenge McRae himself on a brand new course, and if you win you can race with a special car.

Players have a small list of cars to choose from initially but can open up new ones as they win. The first four are the four wheeler drives Subaru Impreza, Ford Escort WRC, Mitsubishi Lancer, and the Toyota Corolla, and the remaining three are two-wheel drives, the VW Golf GTI, the Seat Ibiza, and the Skoda Felicia. And even though this is a small selection, like I said before, it's the way the car is set up before each race that makes or breaks your outcome.

Graphics When it comes to graphics, Codemasters always does a decent to good job, and Colin McRae Rally is neither visually terrible nor spectacularly great. The care are wonderfully detailed and the courses are overall nicely textured, and textured correctly to the specific locales. And like I said the lack of pop-up and draw-in is nice.

One of the sweeter special touches in Colin McRae Rally occurs in the dirtier courses. Mud and dirt accumulate on your car as you splash through them. It's great looking, and adds another touch of realism. Also, cars take damage. Tail lights go out, glass breaks, and small indentations appear as you bash up your sweet, innocent victim of a car.

But, the overall visual experience of Colin McRae Rally is rather mixed. Nothing really stands out. The terrain is sparsely decorated, and rather forgettable. The game is sort of simple that way, being almost entirely a skill-based racer, with most of the emphasis put on the cars and the racing. Ain't nothing wrong with it, but I can't remember any more than say, one or two particulars of any area, which isn't saying much. In the complaint department, the biggest problems occur when you slow down to take a look at just about anything. Almost every object is sprite-based -- trees, bushes, etc. -- and they are all pixelly as hell and ugly. Of course, you're supposed to speed by these, and when you do they look fine. But every single person who plays this game is going to head into a tree at least once and when they do, it's going to get nasty.

The second big gripe is that the courses are rampant with seams. In every course, at least two to three times, you'll get a great ring-side view of where one polygonal plane meets another. It's like a flash of lightning. Each environment is just barely sown together, and whenever you drive off the track, the problems become far too apparent. It's ugly; this should have been fixed before the game went gold.

Sound Colin McRae uses a great sampling of sound effects and voices throughout the game, but interestingly enough, eliminates any music in the races themselves. Exactly why, I don't know. But it makes sense, and it's actually cool. I guess this is the reason: In each race your co-pilot tells you in advance of the next turn, which helps you set up. You need to hear him and the gears so you can make an educated decision as to what do to next. So, no music. I didn't even notice it until somebody else pointed it out, so it obviously didn't matter too much to me.

Colin McRae Rally is spare in both graphics -- and sound -- emphasizing the gameplay above all else. And regardless of its shortcomings, the game rips.

The Verdict

Closer to a sim than any other rally racer on the system, Colin McRae Rally is a skill based game that's deep, challenging, and varied, but still not as annoying as most sims. It beats GT2's rally racing in pure depth, with the exception of perhaps not in the amount of cars offered (well, GT2 beats every other racer that way).

Should you buy it? Yes. For anyone who loves to drive cars, and especially rally cars, this is a must-have game that encompasses the sport of rally racing better than any other game yet.